My thanks go to the 45,468 people whose votes have returned me to the National Assembly to represent North Wales for a fourth term.
During the final campaign fortnight I was pleased to take part in hustings for the disabled community in Wrexham, Mold Business Forum, Learning Disability and Residential Landlords Association, and to attend engagements with Wrexham Cancer Research UK shop and Afasic Cymru at Argoed High School.
My thoughts are with my colleagues, who fought determined local campaigns across the North Wales constituencies.
I am delighted that Welsh Conservatives held both our North Wales local seats, returning Janet Finch-Saunders in Aberconwy and Darren Millar in Clwyd West.
It is encouraging that we also achieved significant swings from Labour in Wrexham and Vale of Clwyd, showing clear momentum in seats we have never won at Assembly level.
It is frustrating that although Labour’s vote share fell by almost 8%, double that of the Welsh Conservatives, they are down only one seat against three for the Welsh Conservatives. It is even more frustrating that despite taking Wales backwards over 17 years, falling further behind the rest of the UK economically and socially, Labour was still able to exploit the democratic deficit and lack of accountability in Wales by laying the blame elsewhere for failure on matters which have been their sole responsibility since 1999.
UK Government policies on non-devolved matters apply in every corner of the UK, but when it comes to devolved matters, only Labour and Labour-led Welsh Government policies have applied in Wales since the dawn of the Assembly. Claiming to champion social justice, Labour has given Wales the highest child poverty and lowest prosperity levels in the UK, the highest worklessness levels in Britain and a housing crisis, with Wales the only part of the UK to see new housing going backwards.
Under Labour, Wales continues to be out-performed on education by other UK nations, and only the devolved NHS in Wales suffered a real-terms funding reduction amongst the UK nations. Labour removed key health services from our communities and generated far longer waiting times for accident and emergency, hip operations, etc., than in England.
Labour now plan to govern Wales for another five years. Interesting times lie ahead. If you need my help, please email [email protected] or ring 0300 200 7217